A few months ago, Rita Wilner’s previously sweet 10-year-old son, Robbie, became a walking, talking personification of back talk. He said, “Who cares?” to Rita when she was telling him what happened to her that day and began making defiant, angry comments like, “No. I won’t!” to his dad. Rita told Robbie she was so hurt by what he had said to her that she was canceling their plans to go to the movies together that night. Her husband, however, yelled, “Don’t you ever talk to me that way again!” The result? Robbie didn’t talk back to his mother again, but his back talk to his father only escalated.
The preteen years are the prime age for back talk for many reasons, such as a child’s desire to assert his or her independence from parents, says child psychologist Dr. Robin Goodman. Back talk happens when kids need to assert the fact that they are separate individuals. They’re motivated to do so when they feel their feelings or opinions are not being respected, or when their parents say something that doesn’t make sense to them.
“Before the age of eight, children accept the basic structure of the world that their parents impose on them and believe that the way parents do things is the way things should be,” says child psychiatrist Dr. Denis Donovan, co-author of “What Did I Just Say?” He adds, “Then, as the complexity of their thinking explodes, they look around and see that different people—their teachers, their friends’ parents, their coaches and even their grandparents—do lots of things differently. They realize, ‘Hey, what my parents are telling me to do is all arbitrary, and since it’s all arbitrary I don’t have to follow it.’”
But there are plenty of other reasons kids talk back. Sometimes they start talking back because they’ve seen their friends do it, or they may have witnessed sassy chatting on television. After all, many kids’ TV shows portray dumb parents being the target of kids’ witty zingers, which are framed as small triumphs.
Also, the way parents interact with their kids can unwittingly fuel back talk. “Many adults are so stressed and frenzied that they are tuned out to their kids,” says Donovan. “When their kids rub them the wrong way, the parents instantaneously snap at their kids. It’s pretty normal under those circumstances for a kid to snap back.” Children may also initiate back talk when they’re feeling unheard or ignored. “If a child is feeling disconnected from a parent and isn’t getting the attention he needs, and he discovers that a nasty remark can get his father’s attention and make him angry, all of a sudden the child isn’t powerless anymore,” Donovan said. The child now knows he can get his father’s attention with back talk if he cannot get it another way.
It’s important for parents to realize that no child consciously thinks those kinds of things. “The number-one mistake parents make when reacting to back talk is taking it personally,” Donovan says, adding, “Parents get themselves into horrible situations by attributing conscious awareness and intentionality to behavior that is almost always mechanical, knee-jerk and reactive. The first syllable in back talk—“back”—defines the fact that the child is talking back in response to something that has been said or done to him or her.”
Often, what is said by parent or child is not what is meant. “Underlying all back talk is some type of communication failure,” Donovan said. Here are the three most common forms of communication failures, the type of back talk each elicits and what parents can do to stop it:
Communication Failure 1: A child is feeling unloved or unvalued, usually because a parent is too rushed or stressed to pay attention to him or her. “Whenever we feel devalued or rejected, our instinctive reaction is to strike back, and humans strike back with nasty words,” Donovan observes. One way to combat this would be to slow down and really listen to what a child is saying or asking for. Instead of instinctively saying no, a parent can stop and think, “Why not?” if a child wants to play a computer game for five more minutes or stay up a little later to watch the end of a good TV movie.
Communication Failure 2: Your child doesn’t realize what she’s saying is hurtful. “Kids hear stuff at school all the time and then try it out at home,” says psychologist Dr. Carolyn Crowder, co-author of “Backtalk, 4 Steps to Ending Rude Behavior in Your Kids.” “Most of the time your child will probably be surprised to realize what came out of her mouth. You can then ask her if she heard someone else use those words, talk about how hurtful they were to you and why she should never say things like that.”
Communication Failure 3: A parent isn’t clearly saying what she wants. For example, instead of saying, “Clean up your room now,” parents will say things like, “Do you want to clean your room?” (to which a child will reply, “No”) or “How many times do I have to ask you to clean up your room?” (to which a child can quite reasonably reply, “Three”). Donovan notes that in these instances, perceived back talk is “really a natural reply to a parent” who is not being clear. To prevent this, parents should simply make sure the child is given clear, directive statements like, “Please go clean up your room now.”
Crowder also notes that there are different types of and reactions to back talk. If a parent feels hurt, a child may be talking back to get revenge for something the parent has done that has hurt him; for example, a new baby, a move or a job change may have cut into the time the parent used to spend with the child. In such instances, a parent should try to open up the lines of communication by asking the child if he or she has done something that has hurt the child’s feelings. If back talk makes a parent feel very angry, chances are the child is engaging him or her in a power struggle. In these cases, parents should try to make a real point of giving their child more decision-making power. No matter what the type of back talk, it is important that parents react in a calm manner. “It’s much better to appear neutral, no matter how angry or hurt you’re feeling at the moment. This will undercut any sense of power or satisfaction your child is getting from her back talk,” Crowder says.
It’s also important to stick to the subject. If you’ve told your daughter to set the table and she’s replied in a disrespectful manner, it’s tempting to yell and get derailed into a whole power struggle over authority and respect. It’s much better to say, “I know you don’t want to set the table, but I need you to do it now.” That way, a huge standoff has been averted because you’ve made your child feel heard and understood while communicating your own needs too. You haven’t given your child a button to push, and because you’ve treated your child with respect, you’ve decreased the likelihood of back talk happening again, Donovan concludes.